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For Labor Day, I headed up to Boulder to visit a college friend I hadn’t seen in a while. We went hiking up at Chautauqua, taking a path between the first and second flatirons on the mountains, then stopped for a delicious picnic at the top. 9000 ft does not provide enough oxygen for this sea level gal!

Starting our incline. Isn’t it beautiful? The flat irons are those large rock slabs on the face of the mountain.

Looking down on the city from the mountain. It was a gorgeous foggy day.

This is my friend, Lauren, violist extraordinaire and the one who arranged my fantastic Boulder adventure. She’s pretty darn awesome.

Pine cones and pine trees! One of the best things about Colorado was how good it smelled.

About halfway up the mountain – you can see UC-Boulder’s football field and the orange buildings are campus.

All the rocks! They were actually quite difficult to traverse at times.

Another view down the mountain. I love the juxtaposition of city and mountainside.

And the city is amazingly green as well.

There are hikers, such as my gasping self, and then there are the hardcore rock climbers, taking a moment to celebrate their victory.

Pines! Algae! Colors! So beautiful!

A close up of the algae on the rocks.

The mountainside. Look how the slight fog makes the city so alluring.

Wildflowers, blooming at the beginning of September. These purple daisies also grow in Texas, but not nearly so abundantly.

These stalk-y purple flowers were some of my favorites.

And a sunflower-family flower, bright and sunshine-y!

A view of the mountains as we were walking away. Imagine that view in your backyard!

Boulder is just as weird as Austin – I’m not sure what this was for, but it made me laugh.

Finally, we stopped by the harvest market on the way home. This band was playing a song that went “Because of the zombies, I want you to stay!” (If you know this song, let me know!) And the guy was doing a zombie dance.